18.01.2013 (Friday). After a travel of about 30h and various problems, I thought I would have slept 12h non stop. However, I did not slept that well, because my biological clock is not yet adjusted to the time shift and because it is much too warm in my room. The radiator is fully open as if it was the heart of winter, whilst it is mid summer in this part of the world. No way: it is impossible to close the radiator myself (it is controlled from below by the guys of the hotel)! I get out of my bed around 7:30. I take a shower and had the disappointment to see that 25% of my bottle of sun cream has been released within my toilet bag, which I have to clean.
After the breakfast, I make a long walk in the town and on the shore. The main element of the Magellanic landscape is the wind. The first time I came here, 6 years ago (end January beginning of February), it was icy (maximum 13°C) and half of the time we had winds over 100 km/h. However today there is nothing like this. There is just a very light and rather pleasant wind. The temperature is also high for the area: around 18°C. Finally the sun is shining brightly, at least in the morning. The sun is actually so strong that I got light sun burns.
In Punta Arenas, Houses are often painted in vivid colours, just as in Scandinavia, probably for the same reason: as a compensation against the harsh climate with little sun in winter. However they have a very different architectural style, which is not unpleasant. Almost every place has a bronze statue of one or another hero of Chilean history. Electric cables form incredible spider webs above the streets. This is very unaesthetic but at the same time really funny for the foreign visitor.
Punta Arenas literally means 'sandy cape' and this name is very appropriate. The shore is a sandy beach with local accumulation of small pebbles. When arriving to the shore (east of the harbour), I first examine clumps of mussels from a jetty. Between them I discover the little (carapace 12 mm across) long-legged circum-subantarctic crab Halicarcinus planatus and a gastropod very similar to the dogwhelk of European coasts. On the beach itself, I had the pleasure to find two washed ashore but still living Peltarion spinosulum. So far I had only seen dead ones. These are rather large crabs (carapace about 60 mm long) with claws modified into shovels to dig in the sandy bottoms, which they affectionate. Big sphaeromatid isopods (25 mm long) hide in crowds below the pebbles. Finally exuviae of a species of serolid isopod unknown to me (up to 35 mm long) are scattered almost everywhere across the beach. It must be noticed that we will see no crabs in Antarctica; Patagonia is the southern limit for these warm- and temperate-water crustaceans. On the other hand, amphipods and isopods are very diverse in the icy Antarctic waters.
In the afternoon I meet Marie, who was about to enter in her appropriately named Youth Hotel 'Al Fin del Mundo Hostal'. She told me that she was about to visit (by boat) the colony of Patagonian pinguins close to Punta Arenas.
Punta Arenas with its spiderweb of electric cables.
The little circum-subantarctic crab Halicarcinus planatus.
The Patagonian crab Peltarion spinosulum.
(Cédric)
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